Jet magazine, the Chicago-based publication that has been one of these most reliable barometers of black culture for 63 years, has announced that it will be beginning a new chapter. The publication will move to an online only format beginning in June, The Washington Post reports.
The switch to a digital app for tablets and other mobile devices will give the magazine to switch back to its weekly format. Jet readers who have had to wait for three weeks in between print issues will now be able to read an new issue every week along with daily updates. The electronic update will be taking along all of the magazine’s signature features, including the beauty centerfold, that have made it a staple of black news and culture for decades.
“It’s really important in this day and age that you get information to people right away,” says Desiree Rogers, CEO of Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company, which publishes Jet and Ebony magazines, “that it doesn’t become stale.”
For generations, Jet magazine has been the literature to pass around for black people congregating. The move to the mobile platform will allow the publication to continue to offer its unique take on black culture with the frequency that it has always strived for.
Rogers expressed how she and the magazine understand the sentimental attachment readers had to the printed issue, and that the publishers have made every effort to both preserve and enhance the reading experience of Jet. Fans of the playlist will be able to listen to the music just by pressing the screen, or view the beauty of the week in 360 degrees, according to Rogers. Ultimately, the switch to an online only format seems to be a move to bring a time honored staple of the black experience in America into the 21st century.
“We’re just going to bring it alive,” Rogers says.
Read more at the Washington Post.